Teaser Tuesday: Tough by Nature

This is 134-year-old tradition in our family -- not for the women necessarily to be part of it, but my dad was blessed with nine children, six of which were girls. So his cowboy crew was made up of daughters.

-- from the chapter on Sara Shields  Tough by Nature: Portraits of Cowgirls and Ranch Women of the American West by Lynda Lanker, published by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum and distributed by OSU Press.

Tough by Nature is a first-rate, gorgeous coffee table book filled with portraits of 49 real women ranchers of the western United States.  Each portrait is accompanied by a  short biography of the woman portrayed. 

Artist Lynda Lanker.  Spent close to 20 years on the portraits and stories that went into this book.  She worked with oil pastels, pencil and charcoal, egg tempura, plate and stone lithography, engraving, and drypoint to capture the personalities of her subjects -- the matriarchs of the West. 

The book features a foreword by Larry McMurtry, an introduction by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and an afterword by Maya Angelou.

Tough by Nature would make great Christmas or other gift for anyone with a love of the American West and its feisty, independent people.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Kristen at BookNAround is hosting in September.  Please visit her terrific blog for reviews of her favorite types of books, mostly contemporary/literary fiction, historical fiction, young adult, narrative non-fiction (travel, cooking, etc.) and memoirs.

Three books came into my house last week:



Room at the Top by John Braine. This is on Anthony Burgess' list of his favorite 99 novels, so I've been looking for it for years.  Mine doesn't have the cool Penguin cover.



My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather. I really like Willa Cather, but forget to read her books. This is a novella, so it may get me back into practice.

 

Chocolat by Joanne Harris.  This has been on my French Connections list for a long time. 

Review: Swan Peak

Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel can never escape their pasts or the angry demons in their heads, even to do a little fishing in Montana. Mobster Didi Gee died in a suspicious plane crash years before, but when his goons turn up in Montana, working for a pair of oil baron brothers, Dave and Clete get sucked into a whirling vortex of violence, sex, booze, and vengeance.

Swan Peak is the 16th book in James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series and exemplifies everything that is good and bad about the long-running saga. Burke is the best there is at writing literary, atmospheric mysteries peopled with complex characters and glorifying their settings (usually Louisiana, occasionally Montana). The stories are dark, sometimes a little twisted, and always exciting, with multi-faceted plots addressing important social issues.

But sometimes Burke lays it on with a trowel, and he does in Swan Peak. In addition to mobsters and crooked oil barons, there's a sadistic prison guard tracking an escaped convict, a self-medicating adulterous wife, a charlatan preacher with an eye for teenage girls, a porn producer and his call girl companion, and a vicious serial killer. That's a lot of bad guys crowded into the Bitterroot Valley. And all of them are deformed, addicted, damaged, particularly cruel, or otherwise extra creepy.

Swan Peak is a page turner, but may leave the reader needing to take a Burke break.

OTHER REVIEWS

My review of Crusader's Cross is here
My review of The Tin Roof Blowdown is here

If you would like your review of this book or any other JLB book listed here, please leave a comment with a link.

NOTES

Swan Peak counts for my "topographical" choice for the What's in a Name Challenge, and as another book for the Mt. TBR and Off the Shelf Challenges.

Book Beginnings: Tough by Nature

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

If you've lived in ranch country much, you can tell a ranch woman by the wrinkles -- shallow at first but deepening into arroyos, gullies, little canyons as the wind and sun work on them.

-- from the Foreword by Larry McMurtry to Tough by Nature: Portraits of Cowgirls and Ranch Women of the American West by Lynda Lanker, published by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum and distributed by OSU Press.

Lynda Lenker's book, Tough by nature, is a colorful and impressive look at forty-nine women in our country who have lived their lives is ranchers.

-- from the Introduction by Sandra Day O'Conner.

We was laughing just the other day about when I was sixteen, in the rodeo at Homedale, and my first bareback horse that day stomped on my leg and stomach.

-- from the first chapter, a portrait of National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame inductee, Jan Youren.

Tough by Nature is a gorgeous coffee table book filled with portraits of 49 real women ranchers of the western United States.  Each portrait is accompanied by a  short biography of the woman portrayed. 

The book represents close to 20 years of effort by artist Lynda Lanker.  She worked with oil pastels, pencil and charcoal, egg tempura, plate and stone lithography, engraving, and drypoint to capture the personalities of her subjects -- the matriarchs of the West. 

The book features a foreword by Larry McMurtry, an introduction by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and an afterword by Maya Angelou.

Tough by Nature is a first class production and is going straight to the top of my gift-giving list this Christmas. Even if I narrowed my list to spirited, independent women friends with a connection to the American West and a penchant for art, I could come up with over a dozen possible recipients. 

Anyone in Eugene, Oregon this weekend can see the Tough by Nature exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum.  Sunday is the last day.